^ What is with people blinding giving the wrong advice about this all of a sudden? I am the nameless one you are referring to in your post. What it sounds like is that you have some bug up your ass and you disagree with people giving constant advice. That is, upgrading the HU first is the only correct upgrade path for audio in an S2000. There are no exceptions to this rule -- even magical amps and "good speakers".

So, why is it that all the regulars here give the same advice every time someone asks the same question? Because there is one right answer to that same question. How should one start upgrading audio? Replace the headunit, then the speakers, then add an external amp. From there you can with subs or rear speakers. LATEOTT, have you ever heard a car with good to great speakers and external amp with a stock HU or are you just making this up as you go along? Let me tell you -- I've heard it, as I wrote above and you disregarded completely in your post, and it sounds like utter crap. And guess what, I'll keep telling people how not to make the same mistake that I did every time they ask instead of giving answers like I'm speaking at the UN and trying to please every country in the world all at once. Nope, I'll just give the correct answer and be done with it, thanks.

Edit: and when you pay my bills you can criticize my expenses publically, otherwise just stop trolling and go play with your coffeemaker.

 

Once again I totally agree with you flitcroft. To those people that have no idea what your talking about please stop giving out wrong advise.

Look at it this way you keep your POS stock HU you play a great CD but the signal coming out of that HU is crappy so you add $600 bucks worth of nice speakers and an amp...what do you get...

... louder crappy sound

crap in = crap out

Live it, learn it, and please, for the love of everything that's holy, stop talking like you know what your talking about before someone wastes a bunch of money on your bad advise.

 

BTW, this thought I definitely agree with and have reservations about myself. When someone asks for advice and people can only talk about what they have personal experience with. For me, it's the brands you listed minus the Infinity speakers. What you'll find in general is that recommendations for specific products will be based on 1) value for the money 2) compatibility with the unique requirements of an S2000.

1) The brands listed there (possibly excepting JL) are great deals. Soundstream in particular is jaw dropping for the price. My sub amp would cost $2,000 from practically any other company. I paid $380. I'll recommend anyone check out Soundstream amps -- they are astonishingly good (in sound and build quality) for the price. Speakers, that's much harder to recommend but there are still a handful that are much better than the others at every price point. That's what will be recommended here, in general.

2) You won't see too many people tell you to buy a JL 12W7 sub. It's around 75 lbs. With a load max of 400 lbs, including passengers, that is never a good choice for this car. For subs you'll hear mentions of tight 8"ers that are great (see #1) and that don't weigh much or kill all your trunk space with sub boxes.

I think the criticisms above are a bit blanket, but surely some people will not want what everyone else has (check Kodokan_4's thread, OMG! ). But again, it would be wrong of people who know better to list inferior products for people to check out.

 

Hmm, weird. On my MY00, I added a two channel 75W amp and Boston Acoustics Pro component speakers while retaining the stock HU and the sound was greatly improved. Very enjoyable to listen to, really. Much better than the stock MY04 setup I have.

Some local owners have aftermarket HUs in their cars, and during brief listens I couldn't tell much of a difference.

Oh well. I like Cherry Vanilla Dr Pepper too.

 

That's the third time I've heard that now, but in my experience it was exactly the opposite. How did you connect your amp to your headunit? Did you use a line level convertor?

 

I swear people just like to be different even if its wrong, just for the attention.

That is the the 4th time I've heard that... but I converted Bass and now he's a firm believer too